Latest News

SALT LAKE CITY -- For the Raptors, the end of the road came with a thud.

Perhaps the comfort of home is the tonic Toronto's beleaguered ballers need to regain the swagger they developed after beginning their four-game trip out west by erasing a 22-point deficit to beat the L.A. Clippers.

They ended their journey much like they began it, trailing big, but this time coming up small in dropping a 104-91 decision to the Utah Jazz last night.

The Raptors trailed by as many as 18 points, cut the deficit to one in the final quarter and then had no answer for a Jazz team that took over with a decisive 14-0 run.

Toronto couldn't match Utah's energy at EnergySolutions Arena when the game began and had no solution when the Jazz took over late.

In between, the Raptors played well, but it just wasn't good enough.

Hedo Turkoglu returned to the roster after missing Tuesday's game in Denver with a sore left hip.

He was able to get off his shot, but his ball handling was off and he got frustrated when calls weren't going his way.

Turkoglu had 11 points on 4-of-12 shooting in 39 minutes, but he also turned the ball over three times.

"I probably played our starters a lot more early in the game to get back into the game,'' head coach Jay Triano said. "Late in the game, we had nothing left. We had seven wide-open shots in the fourth quarter and we didn't make one of them."

In fact, the Raptors went 6:30 minutes in the final period without scoring, which points to the fatigue factor of playing the back end of a back-to-back and three games in four nights.

Coming home

The Raps went 1-3 on their trip and return home to play three in a row at the Air Canada Centre, where they're 3-1.

Utah, which was wel l rested, scored the game's first eight points and jumped out to a 33-17 lead after the first period.

Take nothing away from the Jazz, but some of their baskets bordered on the miraculous, whether it was off-balanced, late in the shot clock or off glass.

"Our energy wasn't very high at the beginning," Triano acknowledged. "And every time they missed, they got the offensive rebound. No excuse for the slow start."

You know a team begins on the wrong foot when a coach has to call a timeout two minutes into the evening. You know it's about to get worse when a coach calls another timeout four minutes later.

Each time, though, the Raptors executed after breaking their huddle, each time featuring Chris Bosh, who buried both looks.

The Nuggets threw big, athletic bodies at Bosh, who was held to a season-low 13 points on Tuesday.

The Jazz had absolutely no one who could match up with Bosh, who led all scorers with 32 points.

Carlos Boozer, Deron Williams and Andrei Kirilenko, each scored 20 or more points for the Jazz.

Rookie EricMaynor allowed Williams to play off the ball during stretches, but still managed to score 15 points and record six rebounds.

The Raptors shot 37.4% from the field, including a 4-of-14 night from Jose Calderon, a 1-of-6 night from Jarrett Jack and a 3-of-10 night from Andrea Bargnani.

Marco Belinelli's 19 points off the bench, including a pull-up three that made the score 78-77, kept the Raptors close before their legs and shots betrayed them.